DSYoungEsq, you know from the other thread that i disagree with you about this. What’s more, it seems to me that your OP here really doesn’t make much sense, in terms of the board changes you seem to be hoping for.
In some ways, i agree with your points about GD and GQ. I sometimes open GQ and look at some of the questions and think, “Jesus Christ, a three-second Google search would have answered that.” And GD does at times demonstrate the sort of attitude that you describe, with thinly-veiled insults. The question, though, is whether the new rules are going to make any impact on that whatsoever.
I readily admit that i can be an asshole at times in the Pit, and i’m not shy about telling people what i think of them. But even in the Pit, i like to think i’ve made plenty of coherent and well-argued posts that contained no abuse at all. Also, for the most part i do try, when i’m posting forums like GQ and GD, to stay not only within the letter, but within the spirit of the rules there. It could be that i’m not always successful, but if i enter a GD thread, i try to restrict my responses to fairly carefully measured and rational ones. Similarly, in GQ, i try to avoid taking gratuitous potshots or making lame jokes. Again, i might not always be successful, but i think the rules for those forums are good ones, and i try to stick by them.
For your OP to make any sense, you have to assume that the people who are fucking up GD and GQ are the same as the ones who are opposed to the new Put rules. I’m not convinced that’s the case, and nor am i convinced that the changes we’ve seen recently will do anything to address your complaints. In fact, as others have suggested, it could be that it does more harm than god, as people who feel that they can’t let of steam in a specially-designated forum become even more likely to act like assholes in the other forums.
If i really believed that the problems you find with the rest of the board could be traced back somehow to the Pit; if i really believed that the flaming and the abuse that goes on in the Pit were some sort of cancer that lowers the tone of all the other forums; then i’d be on board with your position. But i don’t believe that, and i think that any problems in places like GD and GQ need to be addressed in those forums. The declawing of the Pit will surely make some people happy, but i don’t think it will improve much else around here.